48 hours after Sir Alex Ferguson announced his retirement and David Moyes signed up at Old Trafford as the new manager, Everton fans today were characteristically philosophical about what had happened.

Steve Powell, an Evertonian who has supported his local team since being handed his first Everton bib in Liverpool General hospital, spoke for many when he claimed that "David Moyes is a typical Scottish Judas Iscariot who has signed over his soul for 8 million pieces of silver per year"

His lifelong pal, Paul Travis, whose devotion to the club is limited to having an Everton strip tattooed onto his body, agreed that "Moyes never had the real passion to take Everton right to the top of the league where it belonged because he was secretly hoping to take over another club, probably the hated Man United, Liverpool or Arsenal or it could have been Chelski"

"All we ask" said their lifelong pal, Joey Taylor "is that every Everton manager sign over his soul in perpetuity to the club, preferably in blood, and have the contract tattooed all over his body. Is that too much to ask?"

Joey, whose blood system has permanent slight septecemia just so that he bleeds blue and once got on the Everton FC Hall of Fame for "Most Devoted Fan" for stealing 5 cars in succession just so he could make the FA Cup second round replay against Carlisle in 1997, admits that he might be a little bit relaxed about the next manager but warned "The next manager had better watch out because some Everton fans are not as laid back as I am. Some of them are really scary"